


Love Is [Beauty, Pain, Everything]

by ainewrites



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, The dorks, This is fluff, Total Fluff, also i love these two, because i've writen enough blood and guts for camp nano, my nerdy science girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 21:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10557968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainewrites/pseuds/ainewrites
Summary: Love, according to Jillian Holtzmann.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have an entire folder on my laptop dedicated to Holtzbert fan fiction now. I think that's a good thing?? And hey, I'm crushing my Camp NaNoWriMo writing goal currently, so that's great.
> 
> And this is just a short little thing. I'm currently working on two longer things, and I want to get Longer Thing One up by the end of the week, because it's all one chapter.

 

Holtzmann never works without music playing. And since she can’t listen to music without the urge to dance, she’s always dancing.

She dances like she lives, with a wild abandon, a complete lack of self-consciousness. She dances with her shoulders and hips and arms and neck, moving her entire body. She lip-synchs into screwdrivers and twirls with her blowtorches and stamps with her feet.

Erin loves to dance, too. Holtz can see it in the way she bobs her head when a catchy song comes on the radio, when she shimmers for a few seconds when Holtz dances in front of her, the way her eyes light up when Holtz reaches for her hands.

She rarely dances, though. Rarely truly dances. She only does it when she’s high on life, happy bordering on giddy, limbs moving before she can stop them.

These are the moments when Holtzmann just _watches_ , because she loves these moments, of happy, uncaring Erin, dancing.

Because Erin loves to dance. And Holtzmann loves Erin.

She sees it coming. She sees the way that Erin’s shoulders loosen, the way her feet start to move. And Holtz rushes over, grabs Erin’s hands.

And they dance. They twist and shimmy and laugh, fingers twisted together, feet stumbling over each other, cheek to cheek. They let their hearts beat, beat, beat to the rhythm of the song. Beat, beat, beat to the rhythm of each other.

They dance until they’re gasping for breath and the song is long over.

Love is dancing with Erin.

-

There’s an intimacy that comes after sex.

There’s intimacy that comes with sex, too, there’s no doubt about that, but sex is about urges and wants and needs, and the time after sex is softer. Warmer. A different kind of intimacy that has less to do with exposed bodies and more to do with trust.

Erin beside her, curled under blankets, breathing softly, eyelids fluttering oh so slightly.

Holtzmann longs to kiss her. Erin has a delicacy about her in sleep, a softness, a kind of… _tenderness_ that she lacks while she’s awake, that she buries under science and deadlines and a fierce, desperate intelligence.

She trusts Holtz enough to show her that tenderness, and it makes something in Holtzmann’s chest go warm and pliable.

She curls against Erin, and Erin stirs, just enough to wrap an arm around Holtz, to let their fingers entwine, and they’re chest to chest, nose to nose, naked in more ways than one, and when she opens her eyes Holtzmann drowns in the _blue._

Love is intimacy, of a different sort.

-

Sometimes, Holtz forgets to eat.

She flings herself into projects with an enthusiastic, mad-scientist glee, her world narrowing until only her lab on the second floor of the firehouse exists. Sometimes, other people wander into that world; Erin, Patty, Abby, and Kevin, on one memorable occasion where he picked up a blowtorch and accidently lit a rag that Holtz had been using to clean up spilled motor oil on fire. But those are more invasions and less new additions, and they always disrupt her train of thought.

And when she finally comes up for air, it can be 12, 24, 32, 48 hours later, and she will have had no sleep, eaten no food, or the food she has eaten has been whatever she keeps at her desk, typically candy and Pringles, which does nothing.

This time, she’s looks up, her proton shield finished, and she notices how her eyes burn, how her limbs sag with a sleepy heaviness…and how her stomach cramps. She casts a gaze around her desk, noticing an empty Pringles container and discarded bag of gummy worms. When she looks at clock, numbers blurring as her gaze struggles to focus, she sees the number three, and the letters A and M.

She staggers upstairs, shedding bits of clothing as she goes (she’ll pick it up tomorrow). The cupboards are disappointingly empty. And she knows there’s nothing in the fridge, since they stock it on Fridays and it’s a Thursday, but she opens it anyways.

There’s a mostly empty jug of milk, a rather pathetic piece of pre-cut cheese, and two take-out containers, labeled with Erin’s neat, even handwriting. They’re labeled with her name.

She pulls them from the fridge, practically crushing the boxes in her rush. Beef stir-fry and lime rice, sprinkled with cilantro. Her favorites. Erin had known that she would be starving, and had ordered her dinner, even without knowing if she would come up that night.

Love is stir-fry and lime rice.

-

The ghost is a nasty one. But they think it will be fine, that everything will be fine, because they outnumber it, four-to-one.

But then, the ghost throws Erin down the stairs. And Holtz can hear the _crack_ against the banister, sharp and hard, as Erin hits it.

Holtz runs, praying that it wasn’t Erin’s head. That the horrible, snapping crack was not Erin’s skull.

It’s not, but Erin’s crying in pain, and she throws up when Holtz tries to lift her to her feet. Abby and Patty rush down the stairs, and it takes all three of them to get Erin back into the Ecto-1. She lays across the backseat, still silently crying in pain, Patty sitting next to her, trying to keep her calm.

Holtz keeps a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, the siren blaring. She feels sick, sick, sick, with worry. With an all-consuming fear.

It’s three broken ribs. An x-ray and an examination by an ER doctor shows that no internal organs were damaged. He explains to Erin, while Holtz grips her hand, that everything’s going to be fine, that they can’t do much for broken ribs, just send you home with pain meds and tell you take it easy.

Holtz’s head is spinning, dizzy with an adrenaline that the fear gave her. She nods along with Erin and listens to the doctor, then goes and throws up in the bathroom, because the fear may be wearing off, but it still makes her sick to her stomach.

Love is fear, deep and all-consuming.

-

It’s Erin that tends to get targeted when they’re harassed on the street. Holtzmann gets the creepy, sexual fan letters, Abby gets the man-boys angry that woman are smarter than them, and Patty gets the threats of physical harm, often sent over Twitter. While they are liked, even loved, by people, there are people who are angry, or the people who are jealous, or just the journalists who are assholes in an attempt to get a good story.

Holtz privately thinks it’s a confidence thing. Patty oozes confidence wherever she goes, as does Holtz, and Abby is extremely talented at _pretending_ to be confident. But Erin still has a hesitancy about her, and Holtz knows that she can feel people staring, and ever since the media started picking up on the fact that Holtz and Erin are dating, it’s gotten worse.

Like today. They have a three-block walk to the Ecto-1, and not only are the regular people staring, there’s a small crowd of bloggers, of journalists, following them, shouting questions. And they get up in Erin’s face.

“How does it feel to be a part of one of the most talked about celebrity relationships right now?” “Dr. Gilbert! How long have you and Dr. Holtzmann been dating?” “Is there any talks of an engagement?” “Care to comment on your former relationship with Professor Phil Hudson?”

Erin shrinks away, Patty at one point physically stepping in front of her, glaring at the reporters.

Then, one, a braver one, steps in front of Erin, forcing her to stop walking. A phone is thrust in her face, and with a gleeful aggression, she asks a question.

“Dr. Gilbert! Your panic attack was widely witnessed. Have you ever considered that perhaps you’re not mentally stable enough to-“

She never got to finish the question.

All three of them rushed in Erin’s defense, but Holtzmann was so angry, so furious, and her gaze was clouded with red. She swings.

There’s a starburst of pain in her knuckles, and the journalist just crumples. There’s a loud gasp, and Patty is hauling her backward, and she’s screaming, words sharp and hard in her mouth, and Erin’s crying, softly, silently, but Holtz can see the tears.

She was just so angry.

The next day, she becomes the second of the four to earn the title “Nosebuster”. She doesn’t regret it.

Love is anger.

-

Erin is always busy, lately. She’s subbing for a physics professor at NYU, she’s writing articles for three separate publications, and she’s still going on busts on top of everything.

And Holtz doesn’t really think about how little free time she has, because every day, Erin spends time with Holtz. Maybe it’s over coffee and doughnuts at breakfast, and that time is shared with Patty and Abby, or maybe it’s a flirty conversation over Holtz’s desk in the lab, or maybe it’s crawling in bed at night.

And no, Holtz doesn’t really realize.

Until she starts noticing the dark circles under Erin’s eyes. Until she wakes up one night, to find Erin with her laptop, furiously writing at 3AM. Until it’s Erin, not Holtz, that starts pulling all-nighters in a desperate attempt to keep up with all her work.

And yet, she still spends time with Holtz. She spends precious minutes of her rare free time, to be with Holtz. She doesn’t read, she doesn’t watch TV, she doesn’t sleep, as she probably wishes she could. She comes, and she finds Holtz.

And the thought makes something in Holtz go warm. Erin promises that once she’s done being the substitute, once the papers are written and submitted, she’ll be back to having free time.

But Holtz isn’t complaining. Because Erin is seeking her out.

Love is time, even when you have none.

-

Abby has been saying, lately, that Holtz is Erin’s armor. She’s the one who throws up the shield when everything gets to be a bit too much, she’s the one who scoops Erin up and away, like a prince rescuing a princess in a fairy tale.

But Holtz thinks it goes both ways.

Holtz holds Erin during panic attacks, sooths her during migraines, grounds her in anger. Holtz is there for Erin when her mind gets to be a bit too much for her, bringing her up, out of the darkness.

And, in reverse, Erin is Holtz’s anchor. She’s there when the world gets to be _too much_ , Erin talks her down from her destructive highs, when everything is piling up and piling up and suddenly things need to be destroyed. Erin is there when Holtz is dragged away by the demons in her past, and when Erin is there, they can’t sink their teeth in and pull her away.

They are each other’s armor. They are each other’s anchor, their hot air balloon. They are each other’s shields.

Love is protection.

-

Love is many things. Love is dancing, love is intimacy. It’s fear and it’s anger, it’s protection, it’s time.

Love is all of these things, and more.

But to Jillian Holtzmann, love is Erin Gilbert.

**Author's Note:**

> This was also written at like 3AM and unedited because I forgot and drank coffee after I took my migraine medication, which already has an impressive amount of caffeine in it, so I was up LATE. 
> 
> So, y'know, just FYI.
> 
> Love from your awkward asexual friend,  
> -Aine


End file.
